Los Angeles Kings forward Kyle Clifford is known for taking — and receiving — some of the most punishing checks in the NHL. He lists teammates Dustin Brown and Matt Greene among the hardest hitters in the game. Who are his hardest-hitting opponents?

Travis Mathew Apparel specializes in casual menswear for on and off the golf course. It’s a favorite of Wayne Gretzky as well as current NHL stars James Neal, Dustin Penner, Scottie Upshall and Ryan Getzlaf. “That laid-back, SoCal athletic vibe resonates with a lot of guys who want to look good during an off-day on the golf course,” said Leif Sunderland, the marketing director for the Seal Beach, Calif.-based retailer. travismathew.com.

So Seattle is building a new arena, the SuperSonics are on the way back, and the NHL is sure to follow?

Unless you live in Seattle or enjoy the occasional lockout, you’d better hope not.

I recently alluded to one potential issue in my piece about why contracting from 30 to 28 teams makes sense for the league, but the reasons go beyond the fact that kids in Seattle generally don’t play hockey in large numbers at a high level. That’s a reliable gauge of interest but it’s not fool-proof. The same could be said of San Jose and Los Angeles when the NHL expanded to those cities, but no one is pinning the league’s financial shortcomings on the Sharks and Kings.

Let’s first acknowledge that Seattle has some good things going for it besides the arena – an emerging downtown, its claim to being the 13th largest media market in the United States1, and a long history in hockey that includes becoming the first American city to raise the Stanley Cup in 1917.

Oh, about that last point. If Seattle were such a viable NHL market, wouldn’t its hockey history be somewhat stable? To answer that question, set aside the next nine minutes of your life and watch this video. If you want to be sober when it’s over, don’t take a shot every time Seattle gets a new team, league or owner:

To recap, then: Sixty (occasionally interrupted) years of professional hockey at various levels, but never the NHL, followed by 28 years of the major-junior Breakers/Thunderbirds … who decided to move to the suburbs in 2009. The narrator of this video concludes that Seattle makes for an “excellent” National Hockey League market. Yet the facts can’t hide that the most stableperiod for hockey in Seattle revolve around a junior team now located 20 miles south of town whose average attendance is 4,206 in the 6,500-seat ShoWare Center.

In this sense, a parallel can be drawn to Phoenix. The minor-league Phoenix Roadrunners roamed rinks in the Western Hockey League from 1967-74, and again from 1974-77 in the WHA, but ultimately ceased operations due to poor attendance. Undeterred, the Roadrunners reappeared as an IHL team from 1989-97. The Roadrunners drew smaller crowds2than all but six IHL teams in its final season in the league, yet for some reason the NHL felt prompted to relocate the Jets to Phoenix (then suburban Glendale). We all know how that turned out.

The biggest difference between Phoenix and Seattle, it seems, is that Phoenix is generally hot and dry, while Seattle is cold and wet. Is that why the idea of the NHL in Seattle seems less repulsive?

The threshold for NHL membership has to be higher – but maybe the threshold for American Hockey League membership doesn’t.

When the Manitoba Moose3 replaced the Jets in Winnipeg in 1996, it served as the perfect breeding ground for pro hockey demand. After 15 years of watching minor-league hockey evolve and thrive in Winnipeg, Gary Bettman concluded that the city had enough fans, an NHL-ready arena, and an owner he could get along with in Mark Chipman. Relocating the Thrashers to Winnipeg seemed safe. There was strong evidence that the New Jets could succeed financially – so far, so good. At best, you could argue that putting an NHL team in Seattle is not so much ill-advised as it is premature, and that an American Hockey League tenant in the new downtown arena would be a good trial.

It’s hard to tell if the NHL feels the same way. To keep any possible franchise relocation a closely guarded secret, Bettman will try his best to avoid being seen publicly in downtown Seattle. This was the case when the commissioner was in the process of moving the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg. That move didn’t happen overnight – it just seemed like it. Bettman got off to a good start a couple weeks ago by renouncing any knowledge of Seattle’s existencesaying the NHL isn’t “anticipating being in a situation where a franchise has to be relocated” and that the Seattle market “is not something we’re focused on or considering right now.”

Take that with a grain of salt, but I’m guessing that Bettman is not lying in this instance. Ask him the same question about Quebec City and you might get a slightly different spin.

Sure, it’s politics. It’s wishful thinking. It’s also a reminder that there is a proven formula for successfully uprooting and relocating a franchise.

Seattle’s roots simply aren’t NHL-strong. And that should be a major red flag for fans of labor peace.

1. Add an NHL team and Seattle wouldn’t be the smallest “four-team market” in North America. That distinction would still belong to Denver.
2. That’s quite a graph by hockeydb. I acknowledge there are mitigating factors that make a direct comparison of attendance imperfect — particularly the size, quality and location of an arena – but let’s take a closer look at what happened to some of those seldom-seen IHL teams. After the league ceased operations, the Cincinnati Cyclones were folded into the Double-A ECHL. The Fort Wayne Komets reappeared in the Central Hockey League and later the ECHL. The Kansas City Blades disappeared altogether. So did the Long Beach Ice Dogs, eventually. Phoenix got an NHL team.
3. The Moose started out in the IHL then migrated to the AHL in 2001.

5 Responses to “So the NHL is coming to Seattle? Think again.”

Although I agree that Seattle isn’t a NHL town, Hoornsta’s reasoning is all flawed. There has been 28 straight years with organized hockey being played in the area. Seattle’s hockey history goes further back; 90 years with ONLY a few years where hockey wasn’t played in the city. So I’m thinking hockey is pretty stable in Seattle and not that shaky.

The last little nugget Hoornsta uses in his argument is the fact that the organization moved out of the city and into the ‘burbs. Amazingly, Hoornsta ignores the fact that the Thunderbirds were playing in Key Arena, roughly 18k seats, where rent was high, there was no full bowl, and the priority of dates went to the NBA, WNBA, and concert schedules. Any team playing in difficult arena would take the opportunity to move if someone builds you an arena. And, oh, those 20 miles is all metro area driving. There situation is like many NHL, NBA, MLB and add any other professional league to the list where a team plays outside their ‘named’ city.

Seattle Thunderbirds do only average approximately 4,500 fans per game. That’s not bad considering their home schedule includes a Sunday and Tuesday night games. Both days were most hockey teams attendance fail to produce solid numbers. However, Hoornsta has forgotten another successful team in the area, the Everett Silvertips, who’s attendance has topped 5K last year. BTW…Everett is only a mere 28 miles from Seattle.

BTW…Fort Wayne Komets left the old IHL two years prior to the IHL’s folding. The Komets left for the United Hockey League, not the CHL. After UHL imploded, a new version of the IHL was borne. That lasted two years prior to the merging with the CHL. Komets lasted two years in the CHL prior to finally joining the ECHL.

Sad day..my original post was not posted. Guess people in LA media get the weekends off unlike Seattle blogs. Or could it be that a blog writer didn’t like a certain post? Still don’t understand why the original post, besides my misspelling of “their” as there…

Seriously…FT Komets to the CHL eight years after the fact….and you are commenting on Seattle’s hockey history…heck…you don’t understand hockey history. BTW…FTW Komets have been around for 61 years. Longer than LA Kings. Learn!

“but the reasons go beyond the fact that kids in Seattle generally don’t play hockey in large numbers at a high level”

…should have done a little more research before making this claim.

Go take a look in Sno-King arena and count how many USA Hockey National and Regional Championship banners are hanging from the rafters. I’m guessing you are going to be very surprised. Take a look at some of the top prep school, Jr. A, NCAA D3 and D! rosters…there are a LOT of kids listed that grew up playing hockey in WA. I think it is fair to say that the hockey tradition in WA is a lot stronger than it was in other states before they got NHL teams…Ex: Texas, Arizona, California, Florida, Carolina etc…